Embedded Software for SoC - Grupo de Mecatrônica EESC/USP

A Flexible Object-Oriented Software Architecture 115
Building upon these hardware platforms, a set of operating systems resembles
a first abstraction layer. This abstraction is meant to provide flexibility
with respect to the OS: while currently, eCos is used, future platforms of
the family may promote a switch to a different operating system (for reasons
of support, efficiency, etc.). By considering this possibility right from the start
on, the flexibility of the entire design is increased.
The central element is a middleware platform, implemented as a framework
architecture. Correspondingly, it resembles the glue between (variable)
operating systems on different hardware platforms on the one hand and a
number of product lines on the other hand. The purpose of this middleware
is to abstract from the underlying hardware and operating systems and offer
a well-defined (UML-modeled) API for application development.
Consequently, product line modeling builds upon the middleware.
Assuming an efficient, well-defined API, product lines can be designed
without the need of individual adaptations to specifics of the hardware and
OS, which reduces development time should further product lines have to be
added. On the other hand, modeling product lines instead of concrete applications
reduces the development time required if further product variants are
defined.
As the UML modeling tool of choice, we selected ARTiSAN Real-Time
Studio, primarily because of its UML 1.4 support and its customizable,
template-based code generator.